


Torture (Is Not The Way I'll Go)

by Arvak



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Blood and a little bit of gore, Hurt Stiles Stilinski, If you're squeamish about that stuff, M/M, Peter is a Little Shit, Pre-Relationship, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 12:47:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20817518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arvak/pseuds/Arvak
Summary: "And you just had to makeusform an alliance withChris Argentin order to save you," Peter still grumbled. They traveled through the body-strewn, blood-splattered, claw-mark-riddled hallways of the shitty shack the hunters had called a base. There was noise up ahead and Peter stopped, staying behind the corner with his hands clutching Stiles tight until Derek told him they're clear. He stepped around just in time for Stiles to watch a body drop from Derek's bloody, clawed hand. From where it had beeninsidethe hunter's neck.Stiles turned his head into Peter's shoulder and told himself,if I vomit on Peter right now, dropping me right here on the ground and leaving me here for dead is the least he'd do to me.





	Torture (Is Not The Way I'll Go)

Torture is one of those things that hurts deeper than physical being. It hurts your soul. It breaks you down from the outside in and turns you into an abused hollow husk of wretched pain and sorrow. It takes a strong man and breaks them down to their deepest backbone of personal sense of being, and then breaks that down, too.

It's not just the physical pain of flesh and muscle being torn into, ripped apart in a way they never should be and bared to the air before blood gushes from the split veins. Nor is it bones being bruised and broken under skin, each and every move bringing with it the sharp pain of deep nerve-endings scraping together where the cracked bone rubs, or the stabbing heat from the bone piercing the tissue around it.

It's not the physical pain that makes torture such a perfect way to break down a man's soul.

It's the emotional trauma of being restrained, hurt repeatedly without any ability to fight back. Trapped and overpowered with no real hope of escaping the onslaught. Most of the time the suffering is not from any fault of your own. Most of the time, the punishment is not equivalent to the reason the punishment was dealt in the first place. That makes a man feel absolutely violated in his morality.

Stiles is not a man. He may be 18, but he's small, skinny, wide-eyed, weak. He has no hair on his face or his chest. He's never had a lover and he's never had his first kiss. He has no economic status in the world because he's never even had the chance to have a job. He is, by all accounts, a boy. A kid.

A kid currently strung up to the ceiling, whipped, cut and sprayed with cold hose water, never having a chance to rest, offered a piece of bread and a sip of water every once in a while for no other reason than to be kept alive to continue to be tortured.

A weaker person would give in. A weaker person would beg.

But Stiles was not weak. He is the boy who runs with wolves. He is the vulnerable human who runs into the fight and comes out beaten and battered, but standing right beside the pack of wolves he helped keep together.

No, Stiles was not weak. He screamed obscenities at them every chance he could, spitting bread and water in their faces, kicking if they got too close. He knew he was starving and his only source of water came whenever the hose sprayed him in the face and he had to swallow or else he'd choke. He knew he could very well die here if he didn't take the offered food and beg for rest.

Rationally, there was no honor in death. Dying because he was too stubborn to give in to his torturers meant nothing in the end, even if in the moment he wanted it to mean he was stronger than those who gave in to survive. But all that matters is that if he dies, no matter how he dies, he's _gone_.

Rationally, staying alive is the main priority. Staying alive is worth more than the satisfaction of not giving in.

But Stiles would rather die than escape a broken man. If he gave in, that would mean his torturers won. If he gave in and let himself be wounded any deeper than his physical being, they'd taint his soul, and he would never be the same again. For the rest of his life, he'd be the victim of these torturers.

He'd rather die than become that.

Just before the last ounce of strength he had was ripped away from him - just before his last breath escaped - there were screams, roars, crashing and gunshots. He was too tired to open his eyes at only noises, such insignificant things as they are, but when a soft, slightly damp hand touched his face, his whiskey brown eyes pulled open and sluggishly focused. It was Derek, red-eyed and splattered with blood that wouldn't be his own. He reached above Stiles and grabbed the chains holding him up. They bent and snapped under his strength and Stiles sagged backwards. He startled for a moment, thinking there was no one there, but he slumped comfortably into a chest, wrapped in arms.

"Moron," Peter's voice rumbled in his ear, low with a growl. Stiles looked over at his face, mouth and cheek and forehead- everything just covered in blood, just two bright blue eyes shining beneath a face off a horror movie. His hands, slick with still-warm blood, grabbed him by the thigh and easily swooped him up into a bridal-carry. Stiles sighed heavily and rested his cheek against his shoulder, heedless of... oh god, was that a piece of someone's scalp?!

Stiles grimaced and lifted a heavy, shaky hand and pinched the little clump of hair and tossed it away with a disgusted shiver.

"You just had to poke around," Peter continued rumbling lowly. Beside him, Derek barked, _"Hurry!"_ and led Chris Argent and Peter out. Stiles stared at Chris' back as he lifted his sleek, black automatic gun in front of him as he walked, finger on the trigger. He wondered why Chris was here, of all people to find him. Derek, Peter and Chris-

Chris, a hunter, with other hunter contacts. The first hunter someone would contact if they were targeting the pack in this town. These guys must've contacted him, and Chris must've gone to Derek and Peter to inform them that Stiles was captured.

It's nice to know Chris still has his back, even after all the shit they've been through.

"You just had to go up against an entire base of hunters," Peter continued, sounding more aggravated. Just as Peter walked him out the door behind the other two, he glanced around the room he'd been in when he noticed all of the _red_.

Laying there, chests and faces and guts ripped open like they were nothing more than fleshy scratching posts, were the three men that had tried so hard to break him down to nothing, all for information about his pack, which he'd never give. They had threatened to turn him into a corpse.

Stiles only wished they could be alive to see the irony.

He smiled.

"And you just had to make _us_ form an alliance with _Chris Argent _in order to save you_,_" Peter still grumbled. They traveled through the body-strewn, blood-splattered, claw-mark-riddled hallways of the shitty shack the hunters had called a base. There was noise up ahead and Peter stopped, staying behind the corner with his hands clutching Stiles tight until Derek told him they're clear. He stepped around just in time for Stiles to watch a body drop from Derek's bloody, clawed hand. From where it had been _inside_ the hunter's neck.

Stiles turned his head into Peter's shoulder and told himself, _if I vomit on Peter right now, dropping me right here on the ground and leaving me here for dead is the least he'd do to me._

"But why would I expect you to ever make things easy?" Peter stepped over the bodies and Stiles whined when it jostled his broken... everything. "All you ever do is complicate things."

"_Peter_," Derek snapped over his shoulder, bloody and wild-looking. "Leave him alone."

Stiles didn't care. Out of all the things Peter has ever said to him, calling him a moron and telling him he never makes things easy is far from unusual. By now, it somehow seems only fond. And it's still nicer than _anything_ Jackson has ever said to him.

They walked out of the base and Stiles began to shiver when the cold air made the already-cold water soaking him feel even _colder_. So much cold right now. He reached up to wrap an arm around Peter's neck to press into his warmth but then yelped in pain and clutched his ribs. Peter looked down at him and a drop of blood fell from his chin onto Stiles' stomach. "We're almost to the car. Chris, get the heat turned on."

"I don't think that's a big concern right now, Peter," Chris replied as he jogged to the car.

"Do it!" he snarled back. Stiles had felt the deep vibrations of his snarl through his chest. He stared up at him, at his livid glare, his wild blue eyes. Peter looked down at him, then, and his eyes finally stopped burning. He slowed to a stop as there was the sounds of a car struggling to turn on.

"FUCK!" Chris hollered. "They fucking shot the engine!"

Peter never looked away from Stiles' eyes while he stood there and waited for Chris and Derek to figure out an escape plan. He just stared down at him and said, "You're an idiot, you know. For putting yourself in danger like that."

Stiles swallowed, working his dry tongue in his even drier mouth, and it felt disgusting. He took in a breath and rasped with barely any energy, "Knew you'd find me."

"Lie," Peter responded heatlessly.

"Yeah, well..." Stiles took another breath. "I survived, didn't I..."

Peter sighed down at him, then glanced up when he heard a car turn over. It was one of the hunters'. As he began walking over, he looked back down at him and snarked, "I couldn't be too sure; you smell like you've been rotting for weeks."

Stiles should've been offended, but it's a testament to how fucked up he is that he only rolled his eyes and smiled.

He knew when he got home, or to the hospital, or wherever they bring him, he'd be met with pity and worry and concern that always did nothing but piss him off. With Derek, he may not hover as bad, but he still wants nothing more than Stiles to be comfortable.

That's not a bad thing, of course. But it's annoying as hell.

Peter? Peter is entirely different. Peter will poke at where it hurts and joke about Stiles' misfortune. Any sane person would be pissed at it. But Stiles welcomes it more than the help he actually needs.

Besides, it's not like anyone ever had the delusion that Stiles was in any way _sane_.

Being treated like he's not this broken thing that needs tender love and care to be mended... It's refreshing. It makes him feel like Peter knows that he's strong, that he can handle himself. It makes him feel like Peter trusts him to be more than just a fragile human being who has no business running around with a pack of wolves.

Sometimes he forgets that Peter knows what it's like to be weak - Peter, trapped in that catatonic state, needing someone to just _wipe his ass_ because he couldn't do it himself... He has known more weakness than most people could ever imagine. Peter knows what it's like to just need to _fight_. Fight for himself, fight for someone else - just fucking _fight _\- just put himself in danger for the sake of proving he could come out on top.

Peter gets it.

And, because he gets it, he puts in the effort of making sure Stiles feels strong.

Which is why, after Stiles was settled in the back seat, resting on Peter's thighs and shivering his ass off while the four of them tore out of there like their asses were on fire, he looked up at Peter and said, "After I don't feel like I'm halfway dead, and after you're not covered in my torturers blood, I'm gonna kiss you." He stared fearlessly up at Peter when his brows twitched in mild surprise. "And you're gonna like it."

Peter didn't miss a beat. "I highly doubt it, unless you rinse with the strongest mouthwash the world has to offer for at _least_ an hour," Peter replied dryly, but smirked playfully when Stiles laughed. His hand settled into his hair and he frowned, then, as his fingers picked at Stiles' head. He winced as Peter's fingers pressed against a sore spot. "You're going to need a lot of stitches."

Stiles rolled his eyes and mumbled, "I'm fine," shying away from Peter's hand.

And Peter sighed softly, leaning down and pressing his blood-slick lips against Stiles' forehead, and said back, just as easily, "I know."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm kind of starting to get used to writing with the intention of sharing it with others! You should be proud. If there are any grammatical/plot mistakes, either steadfastly ignore them, or send me a message so that I can fix them. Or, you know, shoot invisible daggers at me through your screen... Whatever makes you happy.
> 
> I have a Wattpad account too!  
https://www.wattpad.com/user/Arvak_Fenrir
> 
> (I mostly post dark, existential, thought-provoking short stories. Check them out! They're short reads, but they're very powerful. Who knows... You might learn a thing or two.  
If you at all liked the beginning bit of this story, then you should know that my Wattpad stuff is like that cranked up to 100)
> 
> I hope you enjoy!


End file.
